readyState event for HEADERS_RECEIVED using jQuery.ajax

Using the native XMLHttpRequest object, it's possible to add an event listener to the onreadystatechange event, and be notified when the readyState is 2, or HEADERS_RECEIVED. This is useful, as this enables the reading of the HTTP response headers before a long transfer is completed.

However in jQuery's AJAX wrapper, there doesn't seem to be any way to do this. The jQuery.ajax API documentation actually says the following.

No onreadystatechange mechanism is provided, however, since done, fail, always, and statusCode cover all conceivable requirements.

Unless I'm mistaken, all of the listed callbacks are fired after the entire request is received, which may be a long time after the headers are available and readyState is 2.

Is there a way to add a callback to onreadystatechange and/or readyState 2 when using jQuery's AJAX wrapper, without polling the readyState property?

I suppose it would be possible to poll the readyState property of the AJAX object using setInterval, but I do not consider this to be a real solution for obvious reasons. I also do not consider modifying jQuery's core to be a real solution either.

Update:

Another SO user directed me to this question. Unfortunately, none of those answers seem to work. Modifying jQuery is not a real solution. Using jQuery to create a XHR object kind-of defeats the purpose. And the last answer doesn't work at all. In fact, the whole question looks to be for an outdated jQuery.

Well, the short answer is that jQuery does not provide this functionality due to compatibility issues in legacy browsers. To resolve the issues, jQuery simply lowers the bar to the lowest common denominator.

The slightly longer answer is it can be monkey patched into it, using the beforeSend and xhr methods, but this is not trivial, especially when you factor in legacy and cross-browser compatibility. To ease the pain, I've create a jQuery plugin that does just that.